Jazz musician claims that music has kept him young!

Most people, in their lifetime, have a career that lasts for 20 or 30 years. Few are blessed to do the same thing they love for their whole life. Eddie Milburn, 81, of Lakeland is one of the lucky ones. He has been playing music for more than 70 of those 81 years. Because of his love of music and constant drive to practice music every day and play in different musical groups around Polk County, Milburn is my "Ageless Aging" feature for August. Through "Ageless Aging," I profile, both in print and on video, outstanding senior citizens in our area. Milburn was born in Greensburg, Pa., on Aug. 3, 1928. While he was in fifth grade, proprietors of the local music store visited his school to start the school band. "Someone played the clarinet, and I said, 'I love that sound.'" Shortly after, he started playing the clarinet and saxophone. Although he studied clarinet with a teacher through college, he has never taken a saxophone lesson. "The sax I just picked up and started playing." By age 15, he was playing professionally at night. "I got a lot of gigs, but my principal wanted to throw me out of school 'cause I could never get up for morning classes," Milburn said from the music room of his Lakeland home. "Music makes me feel good, all the time." After high school, Milburn joined the U.S. Army as a member of the 24th Infantry Band in Japan. After the Army, he used his GI Bill to attend the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He graduated with a degree in clarinet and music education. After several years teaching around the country, he moved to Rochester, N.Y., to work in several businesses. Finally a music education position became available in the Rush-Hearietta, N.Y., school system, where he taught band until he retired in 1984. He moved to Lakeland in 1994 with his second wife Dorothy. He has three children by his first wife, who died in 1975. Milburn has played with some of the biggest names in music, including Mel Torme, Bob Hope, Bobby Vinton, Sammy Kaye, Billy Eckstein, Guy Lombardo and many others. Milburn was working as a musician the first weekend he lived in Lakeland when his friend Bob Boyd, who had retired to Florida ahead him, called. "He said, did you bring your instruments with you? Of course I brought my instruments with me," Milburn told him. "He said be at the so-and-so hotel in Kissimmee this Friday and Saturday night. So I had an immediate connection and started playing down here." At 81, he has started to slow down and not travel as much for musical gigs. He stills plays regularly with the Lakeland Jazz Orchestra, the Polk State College Over 55 Show Band and the Bartow Community Band. He also spent several years in the Imperial Symphony. "I just had a checkup recently with my primary doctor and heart specialist. They tell me to keep doing what I'm doing. I had open heart surgery 18 years ago . . . I'm good till 90, my doctor told me." Milburn say music helps him deal with his senior years. "It does for me what I don't want to face, and that's my own mortality. (Music) keeps me going, (and) keeps my mind going."